TOBOS TESTING OF SAFETY AND SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES FOR RUSSIAN WARHEADS IN A STORAGE CONFIGURATION

Security of nuclear warheads (NW) and the fissile material from their dismantlement is one of the critical challenges addressed by the Nuclear Weapon States. The goal of the DTRAsponsored TOBOS (Russian Acronym for Safety and Security Technologies for Russian Warheads) project is to provide a capability to conduct field trials to evaluate the performance of Russian technologies for monitoring and inventory of NW containers throughout the life cycle. The All-Russian Research Institutes of Automatics (VNIIA) and Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) have developed the Automated Monitoring and Inventory System (AMIS) and other technologies that show great potential for improving safety, security, and monitoring operations at Russian Federation Ministry of Defense (RF MOD) facilities throughout the NW lifecycle. To validate the technologies and concepts, the RF MOD requires that these systems be tested and evaluated in realistic field environments. To facilitate testing and evaluation of storage monitoring and inventory technologies, DTRA funded the construction of a Model Test Site (MTS) for the RF MOD at a facility located in St. Petersburg, Russia. This facility was completed in October 2003. In its current configuration, the MTS provides the RF MOD the capability to test and evaluate integrated storage monitoring and inventory technologies to include container contents identification, container tracking, radiation monitoring of portals and enclosures, tamper-indicating devices, and a remote inventory system. Operational testing of the AMIS system and associated technologies began at the MTS in October 2004 under the auspices of the RF MOD Technical Systems Safety and Security Research and Development Center (NITs BTS) and was completed in June of this year. The successful completion of the test program should be viewed as another stepping stone in the overall nonproliferation work that will ultimately result in the actual installation of these technologies at Russian nuclear facilities. This paper summarizes how NITs BTS conducted their testing and evaluation process and provides an assessment of how each technology performed against the performance criteria.